30th May, 2014
The NBA is ready to review ex-Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer’s $2 billion deal to buy the Los Angeles Clippers, but said Friday next week’s meeting to terminate Donald Sterling’s ownership is still on.
A statement from NBA spokemsan Mike Bass said commissioner Adam Silver would welcome a voluntary sale of the team by Donald Sterling and his wife, Shelly.
“Commissioner Silver has consistently said the preferred outcome to the Clippers proceeding would be a voluntary sale of the team,” Bass said in a statement.
“Shelly Sterling advised the NBA last night that an agreement had been reached with Steve Ballmer, and the NBA Advisory/Finance Committee met via conference call this morning to discuss these developments.
“We await the submission of necessary documentation from Mrs. Sterling.
“In the meantime, the June 3 special meeting of the NBA Board of Governors remains as scheduled.”
Ballmer and Shelly Sterling issued a joint statement shortly before midnight on Thursday night, saying they had signed an agreement for Ballmer to purchase the club for an NBA record $2 billion.
In the statement, Shelly Sterling said she was acting as sole trustee of the family, which owns the team, although a lawyer for her husband had said earlier Thursday that Donald Sterling still had to sign off on any deal and might fight it.
The league had scheduled next Tuesday’s board of governor’s hearing in order to vote on whether to strip Donald Sterling of the club for racist conduct detrimental to the league.
Silver has already banned Donald Sterling for life and fined him $2.5 million for racially charged comments that he made in a private conversation with girlfriend V. Stiviano leaked onto the TMZ.com website in April.
Although the NBA still has to ratify any deal, Shelly Sterling expressed confidence the Ballmer sale would go ahead.
“I am delighted that we are selling the team to Steve, who will be a terrific owner,” she said.
The price tag for a team that has never won a championship would set an NBA record — well above the record $550 million paid for the Milwaukee Bucks in April.
It would mark a massive financial return for Sterling on a club he purchased in 1981 for just $12 million.
Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft from 2000 until this year, said he loves basketball and will do “everything in my power to ensure that the Clippers continue to win — and win big — in Los Angeles.”
With those comments Ballmer reassured Clippers fans that he wouldn’t move the team to Seattle, where he had once hoped to relocate the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.